Supporters of legal marijuana have recruited two prominent Boston officials to publicly back the bid to legalize and tax the drug. The move to back a 'yes’ vote on Question 4 puts City Council President Michelle Wu and fellow councillor Tito Jackson at odds with Mayor Marty Walsh, who strongly opposes Question 4.
At a State House rally Wednesday morning, Jackson said legalizing and taxing marijuana would open up a revenue source that can be spent on fighting the opiate epidemic and paying for other public needs.
“This would provide much-needed resources for many things that we need. Education, also the detox beds, and I believe we are doing the right thing and we will be on the right side of history,” Jackson said.
The question before voters this November will ask whether to make marijuana and marijuana products legal for those over 21 years old, with state regulations and taxation similar to the way alcohol is controlled now.
At the same time as the rally and press conference, Boston’s first medical marijuana dispensary finally opened it’s doors on Milk Street, three and a half years after voters approved marijuana for medical use.
Massachusetts marijuana advocates aren’t alone in trying to take advantage of the high-turnout presidential contest in November to bring people to the polls this year. California, Nevada and Maine have legalization efforts on the ballot, with Arkansas, Florida and Montana entertaining medical marijuana proposals.
The Maine question is asking voter whether to “allow the possession and use of marijuana,” for adults over 21 as well as “the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance,” a very similar measure to the Massachusetts measure.
Colorado and Washington voted to legalize in 2012, with Oregon following suit two years later. Colorado’s experience has been telling over the last four years. Gov. John Hickenlooper, at first a strong opponent of the effort, has turned his position around and now says Colorado’s system is “beginning to look like it might work,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hickenlooper hastold Fox Business that implementing the people’s choice to legalize marijuana was “not as vexing as we thought it was going to be.”
The opponents of Question 4, the Campaign for a Safe & Healthy Massachusetts, issued a statement Wednesday saying that 119 members of the state Legislature openly oppose Question 4. Many of the lawmakers see the proposed law as going too far by allowing edible variations of the drug.
“The Massachusetts ballot question, which was written by and for the Marijuana industry, sets no limits on the number of producers and sellers, allows people to grow tens of thousands of dollars of marijuana at their homes, even over neighbors’ objections, and has been shown to dramatically increase impaired driving in other states that have legalized commercial marijuana.” the statement read.
Wu, who said she’s never used marijuana and doesn’t plan to start, said legalizing the drug would serve a social justice goal of limiting arrests among poor and minority communities by ending the prohibition.
“Decriminalization doesn’t go far enough,” Wu said.
The Commonwealth stopped criminally charging those with less than an ounce of marijuana in 2007.
“In that case we are saying it’s okay, but only if you do it behind closed doors and no one sees you. We’re leaving the door wide open for uneven enforcement in all the other negative impacts of black market,” Wu said.
Jackson called the debate over legal marijuana a “question of equity,” and said it would relieve the racial imbalance between the lopsided numbers of black and Latinos imprisoned for selling marijuana versus their white counterparts.
The anti-Question 4 coalition fired out another statement Wednesday morning, refuting claims that legalizing marijuana will lower the racial discrepancy for marijuana arrests. A study of Colorado’s legal weed trade, the organizers against the measure say, shows that more black and Latino juveniles have been arrested on marijuana charges since legalization, even though total arrests and arrests or whites have decreased.
Jackson said tax revenues generated from the legal sale of the drug could go toward fighting the opiate epidemic.
“If anyone is serious about dealing with the opioid issues in the state of Massachusetts, then they’re on our side. If they’re serious about helping people who have addiction, and sadly, are dying, then they’re on our side,” Jackson said.
(And for the record, Jackson said he can’t pledge, as Wu had, that he hasn’t smoked marijuana. “I will just say, I never rolled it,” the councilor said)
Cambridge Rep. David Rogers and Holyoke mayor Alex Morse also appeared at the small rally outside the State House Wednesday morning.
